Modernist muses

Veteran Chinese composer Chen Qigang's piece, L'Eloignement, and Dutch composer Michel van der Aa's experimental piece, Hysteresis, were also on the program list.

"We want to introduce the outstanding achievements of the new generation of Chinese musicians to domestic audiences. That's why we have Du Yun and Zhou Tian this year," Yu says. "They are bold, open and deeply grounded in the entire spectrum of Chinese heritage, such as folk music and philosophical and spiritual ideals."

"The audience in the world of the arts is ready, and as a composer, what I need to do is write music," says Du, 40, who began studying piano from the age of 4 and graduated from Shanghai Conservatory of Music with a major in composition before moving to the United States. She graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor's of Music degree in composition and received her PhD in music composition from Harvard University. "I have been writing music since I was 11 years old and have never stopped. It's important to me to engage people in a dialogue with music. Even if I won a Pulitzer Prize, it wouldn't change me."